Conventional computerized devices, such as personal computers, laptop computers, and the like utilize a graphical user interface (GUI) that enables users to interact with the computerized device. In general, using a graphical user interface, a user operates an input device such as a mouse or keyboard to manipulate graphical elements or objects on a computer display. The graphical elements objects are often represented as icons or thumbnails, and the user can operate an input device such as a mouse to move a mouse pointer onto a graphical element (i.e., graphically overlapping the thumbnail) on the graphical user interface. By depressing a mouse button, the application (such as the operating system desktop) selects the graphical element, and if the user maintains the mouse button in a depressed state, the user can drag the icon across the graphical user interface. By releasing the mouse button, the icon is placed on the graphical user interface at the current position of the mouse pointer.
One type of graphical element is a thumbnail (also referred to as an icon) which typically comprises a small image representation of a larger image, usually intended to make it easier and faster to look at or manage a group of larger images. For example, software that lets you manage a number of images often provides a thumbnail version of each image so that you don't have to remember the file name of each image. A thumbnail is also used to mean a small and approximate version of an image or a brochure layout as a preliminary design step. Web sites with many pictures, such as online stores with visual catalogs, often provide thumbnail images instead of larger images to make the page download faster. Programs often let you click on the thumbnail to retrieve a larger version of the image or document.